


A Complicated Friendship

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-24
Updated: 2009-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Complicated Friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amberlynne](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=amberlynne).



> Thanks to dogeared for the beta! Set immediately after 'Epiphany.'

"Do it," John says gently, and Rodney grimaces. He wants to look away; to do anything but meet John's gaze and see the full breadth of his amused irritation.

"I really think you're the better person to – "

"Rodney," John murmurs, and he wraps one hand around Rodney's wrist.

It's one of the odder moments in their complicated friendship, Rodney thinks – John perched on the lip of the tub in Rodney's bathroom, dressed in BDUs that smell cleanly of dust, face tipped up toward him. He's bearded still, one last outward sign of isolation – the homespun pants and thick boots of the cloister are gone, and Rodney hopes to god that someone's burning them, but the beard remains.

Which is why John's here.

Rodney huffs and reaches for the scissors John left on the sink. "You're so fucking feeble," he mutters, roughly tilting John's head to the side, beginning to clip the beard as short as he can.

"Yeah," John agrees. "That's me. _Feeble_."

He sounds pleased, which only adds to Rodney's confusion. "Sharp things," he says tightly as he cuts the hair around John's mouth. "Perhaps it's best if you don't talk."

A muscle in John's cheek twitches then stills.

"Or _laugh_ ," Rodney mutters. "And you are _so_ cleaning up this hair."

They fall into a silence that Rodney might once have called companionable, but previous moments of companionship never involved him inching a knee between John's thighs and trimming back the thorny tumbleweed growing over the lower half of his face.

"Probably all kinds of things wrong with your endocrine system," Rodney grouses.

John arches an eyebrow. "That a come on?"

"Is that a – " Rodney steps back and blinks at him. "Did they literally eat your brains at the cloister? Did they preach an inner peace that conjured visions of the living dead? Do they feast on the neurological undergarments of the new and strangely bearded before breakfast?"

John raises his other eyebrow.

"So it's not my best metaphor," Rodney snaps. "Wet your face."

John does as directed, splashing almost as much water on the mirror and the floor as he does on his himself, settling back, hands curled around the lip of the tub.

Rodney busies himself with shaving foam, rubbing his hands together to produce the lather he wants. "Chin up," he says, as if this isn't weird at all, as if the back of his neck isn't heating up merrily; as if he always has problems steadying his hands when he shaves other men in his bathroom — which, frankly, is possible; he needs more data to find out if this is event-specific or Sheppard-specific, since both possibilities present a radically new data set he ought to work through. He hmmphs disapproval at his own half-mad thoughts, works the foam across John's jaw, tries not to think how different these bristles feel beneath his fingertips – thicker, more willful than his own – and screw whatever the saffron zombies did to John's meager brain, it's entirely possible they sampled Rodney's if these thoughts are anything to go by.

Rodney shakes himself, finds his focus, picks up John's razor – a wretched little plastic thing with only three blades. He can't help but snort disdainfully as he turns it between his fingers.

"Sorry," John says. "You were hoping for a straight edge?"

"Shut it, Santa," Rodney offers, and tilts John's head again, steadies him with one hand, and drags the razor from his sideburn to his jaw with the other. John lets out an unsteady breath and Rodney freezes. "Did I . . . " He doesn't see any blood.

"No, it's good," John murmurs. "You can . . . you know."

"Keep going?" Rodney asks, rinsing the razor in the sink.

"Mmmhmm," John says, and when Rodney turns back around, he's closed his eyes.

Adjectives have never been Rodney's strong suit – or at least the adjectives devoted to realms other than the vast stupidity of almost every other human being with whom he's forced to have daily contact – and he's left fumbling for words to describe how charged the air suddenly feels, how there's something happening inside the cavity of his chest that's new and strange and yet desperately familiar. "I'll, uh. . ." He waves the razor, though John can't see it.

John just hums.

Rodney steps in close, knee between John's thighs again, and drags the razor over John's proffered cheek. He swallows – his mouth is dry, his throat a little tight, and he's probably caught a cretinous infection from the Orange Ascended Ones, had the useful bacteria in his body zapped into oblivion by the time-displacement field at the cloister's edge. He's sickening for something, that much is obvious – as he works, he starts to sweat a little, and he's probably running a fever. His shirt feels too tight, constrictive as he gently clears bristle and shaving foam from John's restive chin, and when he turns to rinse the razor in the sink, his hand is shaking. He feels a little light-headed if he gives it thought.

But John looks like John again, inch by inch, skin scraped pink and smooth by Rodney's ministrations. When the last of the stubble is gone, Rodney wets a washcloth, gently smoothes away remnants of the shaving foam. John's eyes are still closed, and Rodney fumbles the wash cloth, drops it on the floor, seized as he is by the need to just . . .

"Done?" John whispers.

"I – well, just a . . ." And Rodney lifts his hand again, cups John's jaw, drags his thumb across the cheek he's bared. He doesn't know what the hell's got into him, but John's pink and quiet and sitting on his bath tub and –

"Six months," John murmurs; his eyes are open, and he's making no effort to push away Rodney's hand.

"Hours," Rodney croaks, and flushes immediately, because what's he saying, hours compared to days? "I mean – "

"Yeah," John breathes, and then he's standing, far too close, and his hands are on Rodney's elbows and Rodney may not know the words for the twisting panic, the burst of warmth running the length of his spine, but his body seems to have things in hand – as John leans in, Rodney finds his eyes closing.

The kiss is a whisper, a barely-there touch, and as John pulls back Rodney chases after more of it, reaches to tangle his fingers in John's hair. If they're kissing – and evidence suggests that they really, really are – then they're doing it right, and Rodney nudges his lips to John's once, twice, drags his nose across the new-bared skin beside John's mouth.

John gasps and shudders.

It's a different kiss after that, open mouthed, curious, and they're holding each other as if there's a threat of ascension, as if the good, firm grip of another's hands can root them like this, leaning into each other's space, dragging in breath and kissing, kissing, wanting, _needing_ , as if this can remake them both.

They catch their breath with their foreheads touching, John's fingers bunching Rodney's sleeves. "Meditated," John murmurs. "A lot."

Rodney snorts, shifts just enough to nudge his nose against John's. "You?"

"Hey," John protests, but he's laughing softly. "Just – figured stuff out. That's all."

"Figured stuff out," Rodney says, and he tilts his head, presses dry lips to John's bare cheek, feels John shiver against him. "Yeah." And he's no idea what it is they do next, how they move this out of his bathroom and into their lives, but he's smart, he'll work it out, he'll map the possibilities with the five percent brain power such thorny problems need, and if worst comes to worst, he'll stay here, like this.

"Months," John says softly, and Rodney slips his arms around him, finds himself held up as much as he's holding on.


End file.
